(PatriotPostNews.com) – French and Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski has begun his trial in a case that claims he is guilty of libel against Charlotte Lewis, a British actress.
On Tuesday, March 5, the elderly filmmaker was tried out of court in Paris in a defamation lawsuit that alleges he belittled Lewis by accusing her of lying that he had assaulted her years ago.
Lewis sued Polanski, who is now 90 years old, over comments he made to Paris Match in 2019. At the time of the interview with the magazine, the filmmaker described the actresses’ assault accusations as a “heinous lie.”
Lewis had previously alleged in 2010 that she had been romantically mistreated by Polanski in 1983. She said it occurred when she was in Paris, on a casting appointment trip, and that she was 16 years old at the time. According to the 2019 interview with Paris Match, Polanski rejected the allegations.
He cited a quote that had been attributed to the actress, allegedly said during a News of the World interview she participated in back in 1999. The quote stated that the actress “wanted to be his [Polanski’s] mistress.”
Eleven years after the British tabloid published this sentiment as her own, Lewis denied the accuracy of the article and filed a lawsuit. The legal action led to an automatic charge of defamation against Polanski, according to French law.
But this is not the first time Polanski has been accused of abusing women and girls. In the 1970s, he pleaded guilty to charges in the United States of having illegal relations with a teenage girl and then fled to France when he found out the judge was planning to send him to jail instead of accepting his plea deal.
Although the filmmaker has been accused of similar misconduct by several others, he has denied all allegations that he abused both minors and adults in the 1970s, all of which have since expired their time to be prosecuted. However, Polanski is still a fugitive for remaining in Paris and avoiding his sentence from the United States in the 1977 assault case for which he was convicted.
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